"A strange, soft storm of white flakes is floating out of the summer sky, drifting past tall mountainside evergreens onto the nets of golden lichens hung from their boughs, onto the bushes colored by salmonberries and blueberries, onto the bear-tracked shores. This is not an unseasonal snow squall, not a flurry of wind-borne seeds. It's a fall of molted feathers from bald eagles converging on the waterways by the hundreds, bright heads and tails gleaming like beacons all along the dark woodland slopes. A high tide of flesh surges inland from the sea: Every river, every stream, quivers with salmon thrashing upcurrent to spawn like rapids running in reverse. If any more flowing juices and beating hearts crowded in here, the place might start moving around on its own."
So begins a lyrical, moving piece about Alaska's Tongass National Forest, which contains one of the world's largest rain forests not located in the tropics. The Tongass is an old growth forest, making it an extremely valuable carbon sink, according to this study. However, the Tongass is in grave danger of being destroyed by subsidized logging.
Take action to save this beautiful national treasure! Tell the Bush administration to protect this lovely piece of nature.
(Photo courtesy of Flickr user Neil Clement, shared under a Creative Commons license.)
